Each of the Oscar-buzzed live-action shorts has something to do with time, its elusiveness and ineluctable demands. Pentecost, directed by Peter McDonald, follows the travails of 11-year-old Damian Lynch (Scott Graham), whose father (Michael McElhatton) restricts his access to football until he completes his duties as an altar boy.

A second Irish entry, The Shore, Terry George's drama about a man (Ciarán Hinds) returning to Ireland after 25 years in America, traces the reconciliation of two friends (the other is Paddy, played by Conleth Hill) after decades of guilt and lies.

Max Zähle's Raju considers the problems posed by time in an adoption process: as a well-to-do German couple travels to India, where they're at once appalled by the poverty and pleased to be helping the child — until they find something about his past that directly affects their present.

Andrew Bowler's Time Freak stars Michael Nathanson as a young inventor who's found a way to go back in time, only to use it live out his own geeky obsessions. As his tries to explain it to his buddy (John Conor Brooke), the film turns part Groundhog Day, part Big Bang Theory.

And in the category's least predictable entry, Linn-Jeanethe Kyed's Tuba Atlantic, Oskar (Edvard Hægstad) learns he has six days to live. He makes some quick decisions, trying to reconcile with his brother (in Ireland) and hiring a "death angel" (Ingrid Viken). At once weird and funny, it benefits from being set on an icy tundra.

(@cfuchss)